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NASA on Monday released portions of an air safety study that documents operational incidents reported by both commercial and private pilots over the course of four years. NASA administrator Michael Griffin said that the agency never intended to analyze the data. Some say that it is impossible to determine whether many pilots are reporting the same incidents.

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Congress on Monday told the Government Accountability Office to use its experts to analyze a NASA study on air safety. The review will allow the GAO to compare rates of events reported by the pilots to information collected in other ways by the Federal Aviation Administration. The NASA study involved interviews with pilots that covered dozens of safety incidents.

NASA on Monday released portions of an air safety study that documents incidents of pilots landing without clearance and flying too close to other planes, among other things. NASA did not provide details for analyzing the data, and it is impossible to determine whether many pilots are reporting the same incidents.

Three startup carriers that operate all business-class flights say they plan to expand in 2008, and British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will experiment with a similar format, The New York Times' Joe Sharkey writes. On Jan. 9, British Airways will launch "Project Lauren," a discount mini-airline configured with mostly premium seats that will fly between large cities in the U.S. and Europe.

New passport cards offered by the federal government will include electronic data chips that will allow them to be read wirelessly. The new cards, which cannot be used for air travel, raise privacy concerns, but the government says they will reduce wait times at border checkpoints. The cards, which are optional, will be offered for a fee to U.S. citizens who travel frequently to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

A new open-skies agreement between the U.S. and Europe will allow Northwest Airlines to operate three new flights to London's Heathrow Airport. A similar agreement with China will allow the airline to maximize service between China and its hub in Tokyo.